This meeting of the St. Louis Board of Aldermen was held on September 18, 2026, at 10:00 AM, presided over by President Megan Green. The session began with an opening reflection on self-care led by Diana Lucas. The main celebratory item was the recognition of St. Louis as a two-star Certified Welcoming City by Welcoming America, with numerous organizational partners speaking in support. The meeting also featured a heated introduction of honored guests, where Alderwoman from the 12th Ward brought attorneys to warn against any attempt to censure her. Several board bills and resolutions were introduced and assigned to committees, including a call for financial audits of Homer G. Phillips Senior Apartments and a resolution to improve grass-cutting practices across the city.
The board will now come to order. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll. Automan Swisser. Audible McCone. Almost. Audible devotee. All women Velasquez. All woman cocks. Present. Alban Brown. Audience Keys. Audiment Tyus. All woman board. Almond Aldrich. Present. President Green. Present. All woman Sweiser. Present. According being present, we will be led in an opening reflection by Diana Lucas and observation of self-care awareness. Good morning. Everyone, please feel free to have a seat. Let's get comfortable and talk about relaxing a little bit in this season of self-care. This morning I pulled my trusty black trousers out of my closet. They've been in there a whole season, and they had this big old wrinkle around the knees. And it really got me thinking, if we let it sit for too long, it's going to be a lot harder to make it move. So thinking about that concept of moving in your body or moving in your mind. If you get stuck in a rut, and uh you're not looking around for other possibilities, other ways of thinking, uh, it's really easy to stay stuck and not get yourself moving forward. So, what are some techniques that you can use besides uh actual exercise? You can exercise just uh those golden rules of kindness, being kind, thinking about what you say before you say it. Is it helpful? Will it move things forward or will it push things back? So just taking a moment for mindfulness, I think can uh really help get things shifting. You have to decide that the reward is greater than the risk, otherwise you'll just stay stuck. So being kind to yourself is a good place to start. Uh positive self-talk in your mind. How do you speak to yourself? And um that usually is the foundation for how you speak to others. So a really great practice is to wake up in the morning, look in the mirror, and decide that you're gonna be kind to yourself, and um take it especially into your car when you're driving around on these St. Louis streets, be kind to uh everybody in all the lanes, and uh remember to stay in yours. So thinking about what we truly need as human beings, clean air, clean water, clean food, and sleep, getting some good rest. So those to me are the basics of self-care, and attention is something that doesn't always uh go where it needs to go. We're paying attention to a million different things when we need to be focusing on what's right in front of us, what's really important. So starting with kindness, staying with kindness, leading with kindness. I think that's really the the best way to care for ourselves, and then ultimately care for each other and the people that we serve. So let's take a second before we move into our day, just to tune in. And when I'm teaching, this is what I do each time. And if you're up for it, you can bring your arms up and over your head like this. It's a big stretch up and over your head.